Writers Place Events

Upcoming events at The Writers Place:

Open Mic: Monday, May 22, 8pm

An open mic reading / every fourth Monday of the month. At these open mic nights hosted by Sharon Eiker everyone reads!


Reading: Friday, May 26, 7pm

Ann Pai author of the memoir My Other Body: A Memoir of Love, Fat, Life and Death, will read at The Writers Place.

About the book: I wrote my book after I lost my older sister, Joyce, to the consequences of morbid obesity. I wrote it because I wanted my sister back - I wanted to make her visible again. To do this, I needed to show our sisterhood, her physical struggle, and the mental struggles of a woman dealing with weight and body image. However, since I couldn't speak for my sister's mental struggles, I wrote the story of my own. I hope you're interested in the book because I'd love to share the story with you.

Ann Pai has been writing for publication since 1996 in both technical and creative fields. Her poetry has been published by The MacGuffin Reader, in the online journal Friction Magazine (2001), in the Detroit-based indie publication Eat at Joes, and in the Pocket Poets chapbook series produced by Prospero's Bookstore in Kansas City. Her essay, “Appropriate Chewing,” was published in Byline magazine in 2003. For its 2005 edition, Sport Literate magazine printed Ann's essay, "Nolan Ryan's Last Pitch," about her sister’s death in the context of her sister’s love for baseball. Ann Pai has read poetry by invitation in writers’ series in Ann Arbor, Michigan and Kansas City, Missouri, and has performed poetry for audiences in Oklahoma City, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Brescia, Italy.An accomplished technical writer in private industry, she has designed and written more than one hundred software instruction manuals, searchable online references, and short instructional pieces.Ann Pai has lived and worked in Italy (as a live-in babysitter, translation proofreader, and English tutor) and in Russia (where, after receiving a master's degree in city planning, she assisted in planning the first Russian city to be designed on free-enterprise principles).


The Writers Place is at - Pennsylvania - Kansas City, MO 64111 Phone: 816-753-1090

American Poet honored in Iran - Poetry Northwest gets New Life

Yes, you get yet another Amy Lowell quote today.... "Sexual love is the most stupendous fact of the universe, and the most magical mystery our poor blind senses know. "

• Iran has honored Coleman Barks, a US national who spent 30 years translating the legendary 13th century Persian poet Rumi into English. [story]
• Poetry Northwest established an international reputation for publishing both stars and up-and-comers with its first issue in June 1959, but the publication folded in 2002. A Portlander, David Biespiel, 42, poet and teacher was unwilling to accept the magazine's demise He contacted the University of Washington, which owned rights to the publication. The university has agreed to let Biespiel restart Poetry Northwest from the offices of Attic Writers' Workshop, which he founded in 2000. [story]
• The UN Committee against Torture calls for the closure of Guantanamo Bay. International voices are increasingly being raised against the detention center there operated by the United States. [story]
• General Michael Hayden nominee for CIA director - defends the shameful record of domestic surveillance in confirmation hearings. [story]

tags: Poetry Iran UN Human Rights General Michael Hayden Domestic spying

Stick Poet Gear

Stick Poet Gear - go here!

tags: Stick Poet Poets caps

Galatea, Lowell, CIA, Et Al

• Eileen Tabios has announced that Galatea Resurrects Vol. 2 is up. You can read it [here]. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but if it is anything like the first edition, it will be worth the read!

• The Senate Intelligence Committee opens confirmation hearings today on General Michael Hayden's nomination to head the CIA. Members of the committee are listed here. Hayden's Ties to the Pentagon and his defense of the President's domestic surveillance program are reasons to be concerned abut his appointment to head the CIA. I urge you to contact these members and oppose his nomination. Especially if any of the members are from your home state.
  
  Pat Roberts, Kansas Chairman
  
  John D. Rockefeller IVWest Virginia, Vice Chairman
  
  Orrin G. Hatch, Utah
  
  Carl Levin, Michigan
  
  Mike Dewine, Ohio
  
  Dianne Feinstein, California
  
  Christopher S. Bond, Missouri
  
  Ron Wyden, Oregon
  
  Trent Lott, Mississippi
  
  Evan Bayh, Indiana
  
  Olympia J. Snowe, Maine
  
  Barbara A. Mikulski, Maryland
  
  Chuck Hagel, Nebraska
  
  Russell D. Feingold, Wisconsin
  
  Saxby Chambliss, Georgia

• Dark Familiar, is a collection of poems by Aleda Shirley (Sarabande Books). It touches on the inevitable touchstones of loss and place from the perspective of life's mid-point. [here]

• The poetry of motherhood [here]

• And another quote from the poet AMY LOWELL:

"I am tired, beloved, of chafing my heart against the want of you; of squeezing it into little ink drops, and posting it. And I scald alone, here, under the fire of the great moon. "

tags: Writing and poetry Reviews CIA spying Eileen Tabios Amy Lowell Galatea Resurrects

I see a merger coming

I must give credit to auntialias for this Gem!

Happy Hump Day

Another Amy Lowell quote for today....

"Let us be of cheer, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come."



Poetry Contest - 2006 Autumn House :

Judged by award-winning poet Tim Seibles, the 2006 Autumn House Poetry Contest awards publication of a full-length manuscript and $2,500 to the winner. The postmark deadline for entries is June 30, 2006 - click here to get all the details.

Also of interest... THE HAY(NA)KU ANTHOLOGY, NO. 2: A SUBMISSIONS CALL [click here]

In the news:

AT&T has issued a statement saying, "it had an obligation to assist government agencies responsible for protecting the public welfare" in response to handing over phone records of millions of people to the NSA without any warrants or court orders. How refreshing to know that AT&T could not give a rats ass about their customers. At least they got it out in the open. Hell, if we take the six degrees of separation theory to heart, we are probably all linked to terrorists.


America Loses a Treasure: Stanley Kunitz / Audio - Melissa Block All Things Considered - NPR [here]


tags: Writing and poetry AT&T Privacy NSA

Tuesday Musings

This week, I'll share a few quotes from the poet Amy Lowell (1874-1925) another Massachusetts poet. I think the state mush have produced the highest per capita number of poets.

She was a part of the Imagist movement, and she maintain that "concentration is of the very essence of poetry" and strove to "produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite."

Amy Lowell had a lifelong love for the poet Keats, who she believed to be the forbearer of Imagism. She published a biography of Keats 1925.

Today's Amy Lowell Quote:


"Let the key guns be mounted, make a brave show of waging war, and pry off the lid of Pandora's Box once more."

*The local poet Bill Bauer will appear tonight at the Johnson County Central Resource Library, 987 W. 87th St. in Overland Park, Kansas where he will read. The event starts at 7 p.m.

*From my Journal:

"Stonewalling was just one of many ways she constructed obsticals."